Communicate about Quizzes with Students

If you are planning on using the online Quizzes tool in TCU Online, use these tips to ensure a smooth deployment of the quiz. Additionally, make sure your students are aware of the faculty expectations, student and faculty responsibilities, how to receive help if technology fails, and dates and time allotted for the online quiz.

Recommendations to add to your syllabus when using online quizzes

  • What do you as an Instructor consider cheating? (Collaboration, printing quiz, sharing answers, plagiarism).
  • What will you as an Instructor do for students who need extra time for the quiz?
    Identify tentative dates and time allotted for quiz deployment.
  • What constitutes an emergency for which you as the Instructor would consider resetting the quiz or allocating additional time?
  • Ask students to have a “back up” plan in the event the computer they normally use is not available. For fully online classes, students should always have a Plan B to ensure work can be completed.
  • Remind students to periodically SAVE their answers when taking an online exam.
    • Example messaging: Please be sure to save your online exam often to ensure the TCU Online system saves all of your work. TCU’s authentication into TCU Online times out after 45 minutes, so saving is essential. Saving your online exam will “reset” the timeout clock to zero.

Recommendations to provide to students one week before quiz is deployed

  • Create an announcement, content topic, or a Description for the quiz with information about the quiz including:
    • Amount of questions students should expect
      • Ex: There will be no more than 70 questions
  • Identify the dates the quiz will be available and the time allotted for the quiz
  • Identify if there are multiple pages to the quiz
  • Discuss what constitutes cheating
  • Discuss when and where students can view their grades from the quiz
  • Discuss how students receive help from TCU Online helpdesk if the quiz fails or there are technology issues
  • Provide information on how students should notify you if they are having trouble with the quiz (email, phone call)

Example Announcement or Information for a Content Topic: Your exam will open Friday April 2 at 12:01 a.m. and close Sunday April 4 at 11:59 p.m. You have 2.5 hours to complete the exam. You can only take the exam one time. There will be no more than 70 questions on the exam. Expect no more than 4 pages of questions on your exam. You will need to select the page number in the exam to move to that page. Plan appropriately when taking the exam. Refer to the syllabus about my policy on online exams for what constitutes an emergency.

Recommendations to provide to students one day before quiz is deployed

  • Email all information to students (copy and paste) from the information you posted.